Hydrate until your piss is clear! That’swhat the cross country coach said on the first rehearsal of victory. By november, when the season had ended and I had never been victorious at all, I was sick of drinking water from my nalgene bottle. At a later date, a few days later, I flew home across the pond wit my mother, who was jittery about the up-coming indulgence of taking a sleeping pill so she wouldn’t have to watch any of the awful movies Hollywood had produced that year. During the flight, enjoying a surplus of first rate trash, the steward asked me what cereal I wanted but the thought of cornflakes gave me the most astonishing nausea and then everything disintegrated.
My mother woke up in a haze next to her dehydrated son, hugging an oxygen tank, being chided by a swarm of stewardesses.
